Re: --off topic Re: Rant! (was) Development process in the Ada community

["Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com>]

"Georg Bauhaus" <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote in message
news:a9bnbb$1bk$1@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de...
> Chad R. Meiners <crmeiners@hotmail.com>
> wrote about tony's comments:
> : Note that rhetoric does not deal with truth, but it does deal in
impressing
> : ideas upon people.
>
> That's a relatively recent (and narrowed) meaning of the word, afaik.
> Until few centuries ago, rhetoric counted as number two of the arts,
> close to logic, grammar, dialegein (not to be confused with the
> simple concept of yes/no/together again), and, in roman days, courts.
> Thus of course in those days it had to do with truth, in several ways.

I am aware of this.  Of course since we are in the here and now and the
modern definition works, I didn't try to use the old definition in this
case.
>
> : As
> : to your supposed 'criticism', in order for criticism to be valid it must
be
> : a well formed argument
>
> O.K.
>
> : and be logically consistent.
>
> That again is a modern axiom held by many scientists. By a
> mechanism known as group pressure it has become a dominant
> view in several scientific discussions, despite it's known
> difficulties. I'm not opposing that view entirely, but there
> are other views and they were described by scientists that
> were/are not actually nuts. (I'll try to find some interesting
> references next week, I hope.)

I am sure your are well aware that you can prove anything from a logically
inconsistent statement.  E-mail me the references; I'll be glad to look at
them.  As I mention before, logic is our best defense against improper
conclusions, not our only defense.

> : As to your red herring about Somalia, you still cite no evidence; you
only
> : state your confidence in a book author's words.
>
> What will count as evidence?

It depends, but paraphrasing a book is a little weak for the type of
accusations.  If I actually wanted to argue about what the US military did
or did not do, I would be more than willing to reason with Tony's or was is
and is not valid axioms and facts.  I really just want to persuade people to
argue better.

> : "tony" <tonygair@btinternet.com> wrote in message
>
> :> Critiscism is not irrational hatred.
>
> (a claim, with an implicit all quantifier)
>
> :> Bombing, strafing and the murder of unarmed civilian crowds in Somalia
> :> (The author of blackhawk down describes this in his book) is Irrational
> :> hatred and more.
>
> Read as, "as described in the book", and given a truth universally
> aknowledged that there is hardly any war not somehow involving
> hatred as a motive of acts before/in wars, tony's sentence (this
> one) can, I think, indeed be read as a logically valid sentence,
> namely an impicit conclusion. (This doesn't say something about
> the validity of the premise (the book). However, if I say, "I'm
> confident that P /= NP, and based on that ..." this might be no
> evidence about P vs NP, but it certainly leeds to sound reasoning
> in current cirumstances, doesn't it.  (P vs NP is not something
> I know a great deal about but if you allow me to use it for the
> sake of the argument...)

I think you misunderstood to what I was referring.  I have always been
referring the Tony's original 'criticism' which was not a valid argument.
When I was referring to the red herring I was trying to point out the
overgeneralization as a example of what happens when you are not careful
when you form your arguments.  I really should just label red herring's and
leave them be.  Good example with the P /= NP.

> :> Opposing the design and production of satanic devices
> :> that make this possible is NOT irrational hatred, it is a logical valid
> :> method to oppose people who betray Humanity.
>
> I see your point (I think), having read the article about a
> clever new weapon in IEEE Software, near Ada pride. However, within
> a scenario that involves satan, I can also see that these days
> people are not likely to agree that logic starts here.
>
> After all, famous betrayals with murderous consequence have
> been carried out with weapons not originally designed for
> murder, but for defence (...) and decoration, viz. daggers.

Of course most weapons were designed to hunt ;) (barring heavy weaponry)

> As a final logical play,
> - measured by the number of guns etc. sold, shooting weapons are much
>   more popular in the USA than in Europe.
> - timelessly popular devices reliably go with efforts to improve them,
>   sell more
> - a programming language seen in connection with popular things
>   will, by the principle of association (like in behaviourism),
>   profit from the popularity of the things.
> -------------------
>   conclusion: ... :-)

Are you trying to imply that since a programming language associated with
something cool becomes cool itself and that guns are cool in the USA, Ada's
reputation should be cool in the USA since it is used to make reliable
weapons?   Of course you still need to show all the assumed implications are
valid, but we really shouldn't need to go there.

> regards,
>   Georg Bauhaus

-CRM